Antigua and Barbuda is now the home of the University of the West Indies fourth landed campus which is envisaged to serve as a hub for the OECS.
The Vice Chancellor of UWI, Sir Hillary Beckles made the official announcement at a press conference on Wednesday the Campus headquarters in Jamaica.
He said the decision follows a series of meetings and deliberations that started in 2017 and culminated with the University Council meeting in April 2019.
Sir Hillary said an implementation committee will now be formed in line with expectations that UWI has set to be met by the government of Antigua and Barbuda.
According to Sir Hillary, the newest campus will be officially known as the Five Islands Campus.
“Universities like UWI are not designed to serve themselves but all sections of the committee that support them,” he said.
He said Antigua’s request was a proactive, financial and ethical matter.
“…UWI will now enter the OECS headquarters with a landed campus in Antigua and Barbuda after several decades of operating in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados with a medical faculty presence in the Bahamas, ” Sir Hillary added.
According to him, the campus will also address the low level of higher education within the region.
“While in recent years the OECS has registered among the highest rates or economic growth in the region, UWI remains dissatisfied with the level of its contribution to the higher education sector and training on that community,” he added.
He said further that the OECS has registered the lowest rates of tertiary growth the Caribbean has ever seen and it is reflective in some of the highest rates of unemployment in the region.
“This contributes a real threat to sustained development in the region and the UWI family have been well concerned about it,” Sir Hillary said.
The Five Islands Campus will begin by admitting 800 students in September this year.
Sir Hillary said this is a historic moment in the development of CARICOM in not only the twin island state but the OECS and the entire region.
Now that Antigua has the UWI campus and UWI is a top 5 University in the world, we would expect a great exodus of students to Wadadli to obtain there tertiary education. Though we have a built up campus, Ross University buildings which with minimal facelift would be ready to accommodate students and with the infrastructure already in place, it should be an easy sell to UWI. Instead of actively lobbying UWI, we have engaged in half truths about five different proposals for universities to use Ross’s facilities – None of which we have been able to see despite the promises.
Similarly we are now hearing about international airport with the same gusto and refrain as in the last election. Can our leaders be at least half decent and stop misleading our people?
Since we have a UWI campus 25 minutes from Dominica, we could cash in on our next best option, be the food basket for that campus. Those who have been to Antigua will know that agricultural food is not readily produced locally.
Congratulations to the Antiguan Government on the demonstration of good governance. While Dominica is losing it university, and Possie people who took out so many loans depending on Ross, have so many problems paying their mortgage. Is it a surprise that NDB is dealing with the after effects of Ross’s departure; just like after the stadium was built, that is when ‘tings’ were put in place to deal with the traffic they could not see was going to be an after effect issue?
They are lacking in clairvoyance, something which is absolutely for any leadership position. But, however, I mean, then again, do you believe the PM in any other country could send his pregnant wife to another country to make their child and have to nerve or audacity to have her run for elections? Yo, Dominicans are nuts!
But, I mean, how could anyone with a reasonably clear mind, vote for a foul mouth negro like Austrie… How?
“In a democracy, people get the government they deserve,” Alexis de Toquevill
Beckles the historian is a keen student of West Indies cricket its beginnings, highs and lows, the defining moments. His idol Sir Frank Worrell expanded West Indies cricket into the Windwards and Leewards from the traditional Big 4. So too Beckles imagines himself the historic figure who launched a landed UWI campus in the oecs writing his name on history’s pages.
It’s a shame that of all the regional institutions that the Caribbean has (UWI, CARICOM, OECS, etc) none of them are headquartered or even have significant presence in Dominica. Everything is in every other island.
I have seen this void in the OECS for years, wondering why UWI did not have a campus in the OECS… especially in Dominica. That’s a shame, because since Ross left, Dominica should have campaigned hard to get a bonafide school to fill that void – esp UWI.
I sure hope the Dominica gov’t is doing everything they can to keep All Saints University in Dominica! It’d be a shame to lose them too!
Well, private business; investors; and institutions go where there’s progress; the more developed a country, the more it attracts business, and investors.
Antigua just happens to be one of the more developed islands in the Caribbean after Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados.
I suspect if the UWI had an alternative site for a campus, it might be St. Lucia, Grenada, or St. Kitts in that order!
While other governments in the East Caribbean endeavor to develop and attract business, all Roosevelt does is travel return, and talk fart to impress those who crave his giveaway’s once every five years!
Realize there are no shortage of flights into Antigua by air via commercial Jet Aircraft’s, whereas Roosevelt boast Douglas Charles swamp, and his supper airline LIAT.
Roosevelt Skerrit has indeed taken Dominica to the next level, and in the same order transformed Dominica within the almost twenty years of his rein of plunder the ripping off of the country!
From Rags to riches he and his…
How can any of those organization you listed etc have a presence is Dominica when we do not have an international airport?
If an emergency meeting is called and people need to rush to Dominica from USA, Guyana…it’s gonna take them a while to get here vs if their headquarters was in Antigua, or Barbadoes
Then peeps I talk with will say, “Dominica doesn’t need an international airport cause all the countries around Dominica have one so we can use theirs”…..
Dominica could not get any serious consideration for a UWI campus. Traveling to and from Dominica is like a jigsaw puzzle. The healthcare system is not up to standard, the network of roads and bridges inadequate and some very dangerous. Dominica is just unsuitable at this point in time.
Country: Recent Development
Antigua : Ownership of LIAT, New UWI
Barbados : Ross University, Canadian Embassy
Dominica : 20 Apartment Complex, Hotels in the swamp, Establishment of a Haitian Capital in it’s second town
St Lucia : Upgraded International Airport
So it took Antigua from 2017 to 2019 to obtain a UWI campus even after the devastation experienced on Barbuda…?
what have we done since then in Dominica? There are still tarpaulins in places where Ian Douglas is claiming roofs have already been built. Where is the double Dr. vision and foresight. What do we have to show for all that talk about resilience?
While Skerrit is campaigning for a fifth term in government after twenty years of failure, his friend Gaston Browne, is making Antigua take ownership of LIAT and now establish a UWI Campus in Antigua.
At the same time Ralph Gonsalves has gone ahead and opened St. Vincent’s international airport and take away Dominica’s Kubuli Beer, while the fools are saying there is nothing better than Skerrit.
Skerrit and dem doe give a …. about UWI. Matter of fact, Skerrit and Hilary Beckles are not even close. Skerrit went the way of Donald Peters and the DSC, at the peril of UWI. Rather than build a partnership with UWI and leverage our appetite for further education, Skerrit opted for a DSC and associate degrees. Honestly, mista is a fool.
That’s how Skerrit run things badly in this country!!!!!!!
Antigua has a real PM, Dominica has a lazy, empty misleader suffering from hubris syndrome.
That’s another big reason we should really get rid of these nincompoops, non performing,blind mice, definitely incompetent and highly corrupt gang that has Dominica hostage.
These guys are so inept they are all competing to place Dominica last.
Zor ka toone cher chen.
i wonder how Dr. Dr. feeling when he talking to Mr. Mr. Browne
We have an empty campus suited for a medical school. As far as I know, UWI has the best medical school in the Caribbean, one would wonder why Dominica was not an option.
And we lose Ross campus medica school. One of the achievements of genius Skerrit but we mus not talk about that because we negative when we do. Well Dominica doomed with that man.
Lisa Wardel the CEO of Ross University School of Medicine said it so succinctly…..This DLP government does not have a bias towards education and health care”””. I say that their strength is lying, deceipt, frittering of resources to buy votes, stealing elections, among others . What a shameless set of MISLEADERS!!!!
Why should I vote for a DLP candidate???
Sets of wicked and evil leaders!!!
Skerrit Must Go
Skerrit Must Go
Lazy Skerrit Must Go Now
Congratulation to Antigua and Barbuda government and people. Prime Minister, Gaston Browne pursued this with a passion. This is precisely what our leaders should do, transformative things that positively affect most or all of their citizens. What big ideas has Skerrit managed to introduce in Dominica to assist a significant percentage of the population? None! Vocational Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Agro-Processing, Infrastructural Development, Technology, all these areas need to be transformed if Dominicans are to achieve their fullest potential. Instead, this junta concentrates on self aggrandizement. They see politics as the easiest avenue to move from rags to opulence. The impoverished state of Dominica and the dire poverty stricken citizens means little or nothing to them. Only around the eleventh hour of a pending general election they dangle a few trinkets in the faces of the unsuspecting electorate. This government is strictly about self interest. Vote them out!
…and kakarat stay there with I love my PM! When our PM eventually moves on as all human beings do, we shall then look at Dominica compared to the rest of the Caribbean, and wonder how did Dominica regress and retrogress to such a backward state compared to the other islands of the Caribbean?!
The answer will be because you were not loving Dominica while you were loving your PM!
Pay attention to how Gaston Browne fought for this new UWI campus to be established in Antigua. Consider the numerous spillover effects into Antigua’s economy from this development.
Notice how Gaston rebutted covert and overt attempts by Barbados to takeover and move LIAT’s headquarters from Antigua to Barbados.
Now behold, in a country called Dominica, a certain man proclaims he runs things and under his ability to run things in Dominica, Ross University left and run to Barbados.
Now why didn’t that bonafide joker (purported to be a visionary Doctor Doctor by those deluded sycophants of his) move quickly to push for a UWI campus at the Ross University site thereby turning it into a UWI hub for the OECS?
Where those four universities dat bonafide joker claimed were interested in the Ross campus site?
Behold, the runner of things in Dominica who succeeds in allowing things to run out of Dominica under his watch.
Why can’t we have a UWI campus here?
Or an embassy?
The nay-sayers will say “Oh we don’t need an international airport…it too expensive to maintain.” But with a school, imagine how many flights you will get, how many cleaners, taxi men will eat off that one air port, you have to spend money to get money. Instead of making stupid excuses for a government. Barbados has a Big UWI campus and got our Ross as well. Now look Antigua getting a campus.
But in the mean time, Let’s keep posting apartment complex on Facebook cause apparently those generate an income. Just bulldoze land to build apartment complex. While ministers in other countries actively looking for legitimate business to bring to their shores. All our ministers doing is…wait.. I don’t even know. What do our ministers do apart from travel to meetings, build house for their women and give mapwie on platforms and facebook? Genuinely asking.
#sustainable Income
Note, we do have four embassies:
Brazil, China, Cuba, Venezuela.
Ok, when I say embassy, I mean the “orgainization” people come to to get a visa to enter a country.
Correct me if i’m wrong but, is there a significant number of people coming here for a Visa to enter Venezuela?
You are compounding your willful ignorance.t
This is brilliant!!! That is what good governance is about. This is going to do wonders not just for Antigua but for other neighboring islands who wishes to send their children to further their education.
Hmmm, Beckles u don’t mix ur words..Good going!! If more of us would be honest in confronting our realities then we’d make real progress.
Now, congrats to Antigua. Again, I wonder what is Dominica’s strategy for regional competitiveness. Where could we excel, and are we playing to our strengths as a nation to secure and sustain comparative advantage in order to attract any particular kind of targeted foreign investment?.
As a nation we have been floundering for too long my people. We should confront that reality and as a nation, do something about it collectively.
If we say Agriculture is the way, then all our thoughts, resources and actions should be geared towards developing that at every level, if we decide it’s Toursism, then same applies etc..But we could also decide on both, and streamline our resources (both human/capital) accordingly.
What is detrimental to our nation in the long term however, is the indecision and the “one-man-show-ism”.Ah beg Dominicans #wakeup
Mr. Skerrit said just now we getting a university to replace Ross.
Wait and see but don’t hold your breath. As all of you already know, Skerrit and the truth are not friends.
Boy I hope one day Dominica will be blessed with those kind of a news.
what about a campus in Dominica? Why can’t our leaders have vision enough to ,Alex things like this happen for our little island. Now our place is a hub for the Haitians. Nothing against Haitians but why are we the hub for a people fleeing their homeland looking to go to other destinations? The haitians don’t care about our country they’re just passing through so they create mess and leave filth in our streets and communities. The government of dominica needs to wake up stop serving their own pockets and serve the nation.
What mess and what filth? Please .. show me .. allyou must stop that generalization … All Haitians are not the same, just like all Dominicans are not the same.
No, they not the same but close though. Haïti economy last in the Caribbean and we second from last. Cheer me up and say it is not so bro.
Congratulations to the government and people of Antigua. I believe that a lack of reliable air access to Dominica hurt Dominica’s chances of landing this opportunity to have this prestigious honor of having the new UWI campus
Our so-called leaders in Dominica should take note to see how other caribbean leaders are pursuing opportunities in the best interest of their Island. All I’m hearing is empty campaign promises and lies from our leaders.
While we have an empty university campus.
If Russ with all their money and clout had to run out of Dca for their survival muchless for that so called UWI Campus. All the signs are looking at us while we are walking with our eyes closed. Labor killed the country while some of us continue shouting Labor-Ka-Twaye.
What has become of the three foreign investors that Skerrit promised to meet with the intention of using RUSM facilities to conduct higher education. Can the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary (??????????) enlighten the public on this salient matter? Everyday is another lie from the PM. Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda attracting the newest campus of the UWI to his country, Skerrit attracting international crooks, bandits and shady characters to Dominica.